Glossary of Chiropractic & Medical Terms

QUALITY ASSURANCE: An organized effort by the staff operating a facility, to ensure that the diagnostic images produced by the facility are of sufficiently high quality so that they consistently provide adequate diagnostic information at the lowest possible cost and with the least possible exposure of the patient to radiation.

RADIATION ONCOLOGIST - A medical doctor who has received training in the treatment of persons receiving x-ray treatment for an illness.

RADIOLOGIST - A medical doctor or doctor of chiropractic who has received specialized training and board certification in interpreting x-rays, CTs, MRIs. Medical radiologists perform certain medical procedures such as angiography.

RADIOLUCENT - An object/item/mass that appears on a radiograph that allows the x-ray to pass through it when in normal circumstances it would not. (e.g., a bone that is not look as dense as the bones around it; or the dark areas that represent bowel gas as seen on the x-ray;)

RADIOPAQUE - An object/item/mass that appears on a radiograph that does not allow the x-ray to pass through it when in normal circumstances it would, (e.g. a bone that looks more dense than the bones around it; calcium deposits or stones)

RANDOMIZED TRIAL (Randomized Controlled Trial, Randomized Clinical Trial, RCT): An experiment in which subjects are randomly allocated to receive or not receive an experimental preventive, therapeutic or diagnostic procedure and then followed to determine the effect of the intervention.

REASSESSMENT: Assessment or evaluation for the purpose of following the progress of a patient under clinical management. The term does not include multiple assessment sessions employed for baseline evaluation. It connotates assessment performed after the initiation of patient care.

RECORD KEEPING: All documents and recorded information relating to the management of a patient.

REFERRAL: The direction of a patient to another health care professional or institution for evaluation, consultation or care.

RELIABILITY: The ability of an outcome procedure to consistently give the same value upon repeated measurements of the same phenomenon. Reliability depends both upon accuracy and precision which may be adjusted separately for some instruments. Reliability must be established in order to ensure that variation in an outcome assessment over time reflects a true change rather than measurement error.

RESECTION - The surgical removal of part of a structure, such as bone.

RESORPTION - The removal of bone tissue by normal physiological process or as part of a pathological process, such as an infection.

RESPONSIVENESS: This term refers to the ability of an outcome assessment to detect clinically important changes over time. Sometimes this is referred to as the sensitivity of an outcome assessment to treatment. Responsiveness is a particularly important attribute of an outcome assessment because subtle beneficial clinical effects of care should be able to be detected.

RISK FACTORS: Health characteristics increasing the probability that an individual, or group of individuals will develop a given disease or disorder.

RISK MANAGEMENT: A systematic preventive strategy to minimize patient harm and practitioner liability through education and the development of guidelines for practice.

RUPTURED DISC - See herniated disc.